Saturday, April 28, 2007

The Mukōjima Hyakkaen

Of the municipal gardens dating from the Edo Period, the little-visited Mukōjima Hyakken is the only one that was not at one time part of a daimyō's yashiki or an Iwasaki family mansion. Squeezed into a tiny space in a decidedly unfashionable section of Sumida-ku, it is an odd remnant of Edo commoner culture.

The Mukōjima Hyakkaen was founded around 1804 by Sahara Kikū, an antiques dealer with numerous ties to the authors and artists of his time. The garden began as a plum grove planted in the midst of vegetable plots, orchards and rice paddies, for at that time the east bank of the Sumida was still Edo's larder. Many of the early visitors were Kikū's numerous friends in the art world; the garden is dotted with memorial stelae engraved with poems and messages from the famous and the forgotten.

After the founder's death, management of the garden fell to his descendants. Throughout the late Edo and the early Meiji periods it remained a playground for common folk escaping the bustle on the crowded west bank of the Sumida.

Midway along the western wall of the garden, tucked in a corner, is a small shop with a very natsukashii assortment of refreshments and a range of gifts peculiar to the garden (The shop is a very fine place to take refuge during the sudden deluge at 3 in the afternoon)

In the mid-Meiji, the Sahara's sold the land to a wealthy local landowner, who continued to operate the garden as a public recreation spot.

During the Taishō period, a typhoon flooded the area for a month. The long immersion in brackish water killed everything in the garden. The landowner's family replanted the trees and flowers and the garden was back in business.

In 1939 the landowner's widow bequeathed the garden to the city of Tokyo. On the night of March 10, 1945, however, every living thing in the garden again died, this time from the firestorm of the Great Air Raid.

After the war ended, the city planned to convert the barren space into a baseball practice field. Surviving local residents mounted a campaign to reestablish the Mukkōjima Hyakken.

The city relented and with the help of local residents replanted the space in the style of a country garden.

And the Saharas? Well it just so happens that inserted in the 1939 bequest was a clause requiring the city to permit the Sahara family to continue to operate the one concession stand on the grounds.

So behind the counter in the shop you are likely as not to find this grinning gentleman, Mr. Sahara, the 8th generation since Kikū to look after the needs of visitors to the Mukōjima Hyakkaen.